A free-to-use bicycle registry is being credited with helping the city steer more stolen bikes back to their rightful owners.

In April 2024, the City of Winnipeg began urging cyclists to register their bikes through the 529 Garage app. Between April and December, residents registered 6,325 bicycles.

Last year, 1,440 bikes were stolen, 681 were recovered and 105 were returned to their owners, including 64 returned by the city’s bicycle recovery officer.

DANIEL CRUMP / FREE PRESS FILES “I think it does seem to be making an improvement,” said Mark Cohoe, executive director of Bike Winnipeg.

“I think the numbers are really promising. Looking specifically at returns made from our bike recovery officer, going from 22 in 2023 up to 64 in 2024, to me, that’s a really good step in the right direction,” said Terry Cormier, the city’s licensing co-ordinator.

In 2023, 1,451 bikes were stolen, 572 were recovered and 22 bikes were returned by the officer. Between 2020 and 2022, only 12 to 15 stolen bikes were returned by the recovery officer to their owners each year.

In 2024, another 29 bikes were returned by Winnipeg Police Service and 12 were returned by fellow users of the 529 Garage app.

The number of bikes returned to owners by police and the public wasn’t available for previous years on Wednesday.

Mayor Scott Gillingham, who championed the new registration system, welcomed its early signs of success.

“It makes it much more difficult for (someone) to resell a bike if they steal (it) and a lot easier for our police and others to reunite that stolen bike with the owner … These numbers show that this registry is working,” said Gillingham.

In one case, police were called to a store to reclaim a bike brought in for repair and make arrests, after a staff member confirmed it was stolen through 529 Garage, the mayor said.

Cormier said the fact thousands of Winnipeggers registered for the app is also promising, though all local bike owners should do so.

“If somebody reports their bike on the app as stolen, an alert goes out to (owners of) all bicycles registered in that area … This really enables us … to track stolen bikes and return them,” he said.

A cycling advocate said he has heard anecdotal success stories linked to the app.

“I think it does seem to be making an improvement,” said Mark Cohoe, executive director of Bike Winnipeg.

However, registration is just “one piece” of the response needed to address daunting levels of bike theft, he said. Cohoe said two of his bikes were stolen over the years, which he reported to police. Neither was returned.

“We hear fear of theft is one of the things that prevents people from riding more,” he said.

A total of 1,483 bikes were stolen in Winnipeg in 2020, followed by 1,572 in 2021, 1,674 in 2022, 1,451 in 2024 and 1,440 in 2024, according to Winnipeg Police Service data.

Cohoe suspects the actual number is higher, suggesting many thefts go unreported.

He’d like the city to require that new buildings include secure indoor bike parking areas, such as in multi-family and office structures, to help better prevent theft.

Charles Feaver, chair of Bike Winnipeg’s bike theft prevention committee, said the app is reassuring some people. Feaver said it recently helped a cyclist whose expensive cargo bike was stolen get it back within a week.

“It’s a bureaucratic chore that you’ve got to take a picture of your bike and figure out its serial number. But, if you do it, you have a chance of getting your bike back,” he said. “We’re (also) making people (aware) that half the bike thefts are normally from your own property … A lot of bikes are stolen unlocked from (inside) garages.”

Gillingham said the city could consider requiring secure indoor bike parking in some buildings, though he believes demand for that feature is already leading it to be included more often.

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“Having secure bike storage … is something that’s really an attractive feature for building owners,” he said.

The Winnipeg Police Service said no one was available to comment on bike theft Wednesday.

When it began promoting 529 Garage, the city stopped accepting new registrations to its own online registry, which required a $7.35 fee. Serial numbers previously added to that registry will be checked to help reconnect owners with recovered bikes until May 1, 2026.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.